MAPH Alumni Profiles, Updates, and Adventures

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Below is a blog post from Jeff Gilliland, who during his MAPH year, completed a creative thesis and worked for the Illinois Humanities Council through a Maph Summer Internship (which you can read about here!). Jeff currently works in Washington D.C. as the Communications Associate at Young Playwrights’ Theater.

Bringing Arts Education to Life AfterMAPH

The moment it becomes real is when you’re sitting in a darkened theater, audience roaring behind you, and you turn to your right and there’s a twelve year-old watching his play come to life, and he’s beaming.

Although Jay’s eyebrows and Candace’s cats are up there, I think my favorite times were when I was sitting in Third World Cafe writing and other MAPHers would end up coming by to share their work or talk over the Core readings.

What were your goals going into your MAPH year? How did those goals change throughout the year?

On my application to MAPH I wrote that I wanted to get one year of intense literary education and then become a book editor. I feel lucky that things worked out that way . . . eventually.I’d been a journalist with a few months experience in book publishing before MAPH, and after MAPH I took a two-year detour teaching English in France, but then Continue reading →